Watch WWE Wrestlers Elias & Finn Bálor Cover Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga’s “Shallow”
Earlier this month, in the wake of a molten Oscars performance and a vociferous fan campaign, “Shallow,” Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s duet from the 2018 movie A Star Is Born, hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Shallow” isn’t the #1 song in the country anymore, but it has now elbowed its way into the pop-cultural consciousness in ways that few songs do now. For instance: Wrestlers are now singing “Shallow.”
If you haven’t watched wrestling lately, allow me to introduce you to the phenomenon of Elias, a pretty-OK heel wrestler with an absolutely top-shelf gimmick. Elias’ whole character is this: He plays acoustic guitar, and, during every show, he will attempt to yarl a song, usually about how your local sports franchise sucks. People boo, and good-guy wrestlers usually interrupt him. It’s fun!
Finn Bálor, meanwhile, is one of the most talented wrestlers currently working under the WWE banner. Bálor comes from Ireland, and he was a star in the UK and Japan before singing with WWE. He’s a former WWE Universal Champion, and he was the Intercontinental Champion until very recently. He’s a pretty standard undersized good-guy character except during the occasional moments where he dresses up like a demon. (Long story.)
As With Leather points out, Elias and Bálor did something fun during a non-televised WWE show in Amherst, Massachusetts last night. Elias, who even looks something like Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born character, said that he was going to sing “Shallow,” and he demanded that Bálor sing the Lady Gaga part. During the buildup to his part, Bálor did the wrestling-acting version of Gaga’s ecstatic nervousness during the movie’s great “Shallow” scene. It ruled. Here’s a fan-made video:
You know Elias is a real heel because he didn’t even let Bálor hit the big note. This isn’t Finn Bálor’s first time doing fun, silly bullshit in the ring. Here’s a 2016 video of Bálor and current WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Bayley doing a scene from Dirty Dancing in 2006, when they were both in the developmental territory NXT:
In related news, wrestling is great.